As always, this review is of an ARC (Advanced Reader Copy) this time provided on behalf of the author by BookBuzz PR. The Lantern Beast, by Archer Wilder, is a small-town romance with a sci-fi twist. I prefer my romances to be side plots, so I took a bit of risk on this novel. That risk paid off. Lantern is a visually stunning novel for someone who can picture things very clearly in their head. Several times I bemoaned the fact that there weren’t any pictures to accompany the text, and wondered what a film adaptation would look like.
Here’s the blurb:
Some secrets lie beneath the surface. Some rise to find you.
Photographer Jules Everton has spent her adult life in motion — new ports, new faces, connections shallow enough to leave clean. When dreams she can’t ignore pull her to Bracken Ridge, she tells herself it’s temporary. Just a winter. Just her aunt’s porch swing and a town that loves its local legend. But Fortune Lake has been waiting for Jules since she was ten years old.
Corporate lawyer Danny Pencroft has built his entire life around a lie of omission — that he doesn’t believe in the lights on the lake. Until Jules arrives, and suddenly he’s the only one in town who understands exactly what she’s seeing. She’s the first person he has never had to lie to.
Something ancient lives beneath Fortune Lake. A guardian older than the town, older than any record of the lake — and it is dying. Night by night its cries grow more desperate. It kept Danny. It called Jules home. They are the only ones who can hear it, and they are running out of time to listen.
I assumed the identity of the titular Lantern Beast would be kept a secret, with readers having to guess if it was alien or supernatural and so on. Instead, a prologue immediately explains the Beast’s back story, and how it ended up in Fortune Lake. I could tell then that I was in for something a little different. I did have concerns later on that knowing what the Beast was lessened the tension, but Wilder found other ways to keep me on edge!
From the first chapter, you’re pulled into both the story and the romance. I was concerned about switching between the two main characters POVS, but it helped to build trust in them and their motivations. There’s a decent number of supporting characters too, all of whom add to the plot. My favourite is Mack the ferryman. Every small town needs a gruff father figure and Mack fits the bill. I thought he’d also be the local eccentric, but that honour goes to Harbor, the harbour master, who is truly ‘in tune’ with the lake. I’m afraid you’ll have to read the book to find out what I mean by that.
Danny and Jules’s ability to see the lights on the lake gives them an instant bond, although I was surprised that Aunt Lindy hadn’t told Jules about them, because it seemed pretty obvious to me that she could see them too. Danny is confused when the lights show for Jules, thinking he is the only one who can see them. This felt like a little bit of a plot hole. If Danny and Jules are of a similar age, and Jules frequently visited Fortune Lake as a child, how come they never met?
To be fair, this quickly becomes irrelevant as the damage to the Lantern Beast becomes so great that everyone can see the lights. Here the novel slips from sci-fi into a very real metaphor for the dangers of climate change and corporate greed. It’s cleverly done, and I’m sure many people who live in small towns that rely on tourism will relate to the characters’ dilemma on preserving the environment versus being able to afford the groceries. It’s interesting to see the different explanations people come up with for the lights. The reader knows the Lantern Beast is real, but for some characters it’s just a myth to draw in the tourists.
You can’t have a romance novel without the romance going wrong at some point. Of all the plot devices I might have been expecting, one of the pairing being a workaholic wasn’t the one. But it meant you got deep into the character’s motivations which really helped to bring them off the page. Sometimes you read a book and wonder what demons the author has, and this is one of them. I might be totally wrong, but it felt like Archer Wilder has put work before life on a few occasions. Or maybe they’re crazy good at getting into their character’s heads.
Wilder is also good at explaining the science bits without info dumping. There’s a sort of sub plot with scientists near the lake, it becomes increasingly important as the book goes on. This means a lot of physics and engineering explanations, but everything is taken slowly and explained without losing the plot tension. It helps that Jules and Danny only partially understand the science, so they act as the ‘helpless reader’ to get the information out.
Away from the science, this book is the definition of lyrical prose. It is beautifully written and while there is a HEA, the reader has to work for it. Several times I thought everything was going to go very wrong. Another 4 out of 5 stars.
